At last, at long last I can thank you! How beautiful, how refreshing is merely its
appearance:2 the
voices breathe, they have their breathing-points,
they live for themselves and for the whole: Where else does one see anything comparable
today? The Hauseggers and their lot (even
Richard Strauss) write viola parts and
cello parts instead of human vocal lines. The whole vocal culture (up to Brahms), the immutably established
foundation of instrumental writing ‒ I only
recall the articulation of melody by means of
phrasing slurs and the like ‒ was long ago utterly destroyed by
Wagner. How happy I am to see once
again genuine vocal writing, above all style! How beautiful is the
minor third Aę‒F that the chorus introduces (m.
1), and without making a great fuss introduces the second strophe in m. 13 𝆒
mf
𝆓. All of this is, I fear, too much culture for the present-day world
addicted to aviation. Unfortunately, the work reached me a little too late: the programs
were already published. Otherwise I would gladly have made a last-minute appeal to chief
conductor Schalk, who {2}
directs our Gesellschaft concerts.
I have no alternative but during the course of this season to make an attempt for the next
season. Last year I passed your Romantic Overture,3 which I had come across with Prof. Fischer, to Director Löwe, who is close to me personally, it is true, but sadly not artistically. He has two
orchestras at his command, the Vienna Konzertverein, and that in Munich. So far as I can tell, however, he has not put your Overture on the
program. The reason is simple: as a conductor with no more value than that of a Bruckner cast-off (and that's not saying much)
‒ people call such a derivative man emphatically a Bruckner "authority"! ‒ he perforce makes a pact first with Brahms himself, and moreover, he bows down to
each little group of people who loudly call out a name. Just look at the new works in his
Munich program: the echoes and
fingerprints are clearly all over it! Thank goodness that isn't your world or mine! And yet
nothing is going to change.

I hope, most revered, dear Professor, that you are in the best of health.

{3} I myself can barely wait until I am in a position at last to send you
the first volume of my Counterpoint. Two more months!4 . . . Meanwhile, however, I have, to some extent
at the suggestion and wish of our Academy
Director, written elucidations to the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue of Bach, which likewise should appear in the next
month or two.5 My short Contribution to the Study of
Ornamentation has at last been officially adopted for the
curriculum of our Academy (also an
English translation of it has been published6), and even my Theory of
Harmony moves along quietly but nonetheless makes inexorably great
progress. It has permeated even as far as Prof. Godovsky(!) and so-called "modern" musicians find my book that of a "Bachian," a
"Brahmsian," without hesitation the "most modern" book. And given the sympathies that our
Academy Director has for my opinions ‒
which is all the more astonishing since he is not at all personally acquainted with me ‒ my
Theory of
Harmony would already have appeared in the syllabus, were not the
difficulty inextricably linked with the problem of conducting lessons with the students
entirely without "assignments" (as Richter understands them).7 I
will take the liberty of having my edition of the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue sent to you
{4} as soon as it has appeared.8

And you, my highly revered Professor, would give me great pleasure if you were to let
me know how much of a fillip the summer was to your health. I wish I were already at the
point where you might see what I have to say on the issue of Wagner: I am almost convinced that my technical arguments
against this man would afford you genuine delight.9

And I should like always to bring you joy as a token of thanks for so passionately and
fervently supporting, in thoughts and sounds, the cause of true art.

I would have written long, long ago, had not the need to adhere to the contract with
Universal Edition, proofs for
Cotta, and the organizing of my
pupils into lesson times (October 1!) caused an unavoidable delay.

At last, at long last I can thank you! How beautiful, how refreshing is merely its
appearance:2 the
voices breathe, they have their breathing-points,
they live for themselves and for the whole: Where else does one see anything comparable
today? The Hauseggers and their lot (even
Richard Strauss) write viola parts and
cello parts instead of human vocal lines. The whole vocal culture (up to Brahms), the immutably established
foundation of instrumental writing ‒ I only
recall the articulation of melody by means of
phrasing slurs and the like ‒ was long ago utterly destroyed by
Wagner. How happy I am to see once
again genuine vocal writing, above all style! How beautiful is the
minor third Aę‒F that the chorus introduces (m.
1), and without making a great fuss introduces the second strophe in m. 13 𝆒
mf
𝆓. All of this is, I fear, too much culture for the present-day world
addicted to aviation. Unfortunately, the work reached me a little too late: the programs
were already published. Otherwise I would gladly have made a last-minute appeal to chief
conductor Schalk, who {2}
directs our Gesellschaft concerts.
I have no alternative but during the course of this season to make an attempt for the next
season. Last year I passed your Romantic Overture,3 which I had come across with Prof. Fischer, to Director Löwe, who is close to me personally, it is true, but sadly not artistically. He has two
orchestras at his command, the Vienna Konzertverein, and that in Munich. So far as I can tell, however, he has not put your Overture on the
program. The reason is simple: as a conductor with no more value than that of a Bruckner cast-off (and that's not saying much)
‒ people call such a derivative man emphatically a Bruckner "authority"! ‒ he perforce makes a pact first with Brahms himself, and moreover, he bows down to
each little group of people who loudly call out a name. Just look at the new works in his
Munich program: the echoes and
fingerprints are clearly all over it! Thank goodness that isn't your world or mine! And yet
nothing is going to change.

I hope, most revered, dear Professor, that you are in the best of health.

{3} I myself can barely wait until I am in a position at last to send you
the first volume of my Counterpoint. Two more months!4 . . . Meanwhile, however, I have, to some extent
at the suggestion and wish of our Academy
Director, written elucidations to the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue of Bach, which likewise should appear in the next
month or two.5 My short Contribution to the Study of
Ornamentation has at last been officially adopted for the
curriculum of our Academy (also an
English translation of it has been published6), and even my Theory of
Harmony moves along quietly but nonetheless makes inexorably great
progress. It has permeated even as far as Prof. Godovsky(!) and so-called "modern" musicians find my book that of a "Bachian," a
"Brahmsian," without hesitation the "most modern" book. And given the sympathies that our
Academy Director has for my opinions ‒
which is all the more astonishing since he is not at all personally acquainted with me ‒ my
Theory of
Harmony would already have appeared in the syllabus, were not the
difficulty inextricably linked with the problem of conducting lessons with the students
entirely without "assignments" (as Richter understands them).7 I
will take the liberty of having my edition of the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue sent to you
{4} as soon as it has appeared.8

And you, my highly revered Professor, would give me great pleasure if you were to let
me know how much of a fillip the summer was to your health. I wish I were already at the
point where you might see what I have to say on the issue of Wagner: I am almost convinced that my technical arguments
against this man would afford you genuine delight.9

And I should like always to bring you joy as a token of thanks for so passionately and
fervently supporting, in thoughts and sounds, the cause of true art.

I would have written long, long ago, had not the need to adhere to the contract with
Universal Edition, proofs for
Cotta, and the organizing of my
pupils into lesson times (October 1!) caused an unavoidable delay.

Footnotes

1 Writing of this letter is recorded in Schenker's diary at OJ 1/4, Ser. A,
p. 102, October 10, 1909: "Brief an Rudorff (s. Blg.)" ("Letter to Rudorff (see
folder)") ‒ the "folder" being where his drafts/copies were kept at the time. — A
transcription of two passages of this letter (Endlich ...wieder zu sehen" and "Leider
kann ... meine Welt!") is given in Hellmut
Federhofer, Heinrich Schenker nach Tagebüchern
... (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1985), p.
207.

2 Schenker is referring to
the score of a choral work by Rudorff that the latter had presumably sent him. The work
concerned is not identified. Possibilities are: chorus with orchestra: Der Aufzug der Romanze, Op. 18; Two Women's
Choruses, Op. 19; Gesang an die Sterne, Op.
26; Herbstlied, Op. 43; a capella: Twelve
Songs for Mixed Chorus, Opp. 6, 11, 13; Six Songs for 4-voice
Female Chorus, Opp. 22, 23.

3Romantische Ouvertüre, Op. 45.

4 It would in fact be
twelve months before the publication date: October 4, 1910. A letter from Cotta of the
same date confirms that a copy had been sent to Rudorff in Grosslichterfelde (OJ 9/31, [27]), and another on October
15 confirms this (OJ 9/31,
[28]), whilst on November 16 Rudorff refers to the volume (OJ 13/37, 13).

5 The
edition of the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue must have been
published on or close to October 14, 1910, since the second honorarium, due on the day of
publication, was paid to Schenker on that date (OC 52/425).

6 No English translation was published until that of Hedi
Siegel, ed. and transl., "A Contribution to the Study
of Ornamentation by Heinrich Schenker,"
The Music Forum, vol. IV (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1976), pp. 1‒139.

7 The absence of exercises from Schenker's
Harmonielehre was to bedevil this work throughout its
history: see Robert Wason, "From
Harmonielehre to Harmony: Schenker's Theory of Harmony and Its Americanization,"
in Allan Cadwallader, ed., Essays from the
Fourth International Schenker Symposium, vol. I (Hildesheim: Georg Olms,
2008), pp. 213‒58.

8 Rudorff's name appears
as the first in the list of those to whom complimentary copies should be sent by Universal
Edition (WSLB 66/67, p. 8,
October 19, 1910). Cf. footnote 5.

9 Reference
is presumably to his Über den
Niedergang der Kompositionskunst, by which Schenker set great
store at this time, but which was not published in his lifetime. The material survives in
OC 31 from around c.1906‒07; see William Drabkin, ed.
and transl., "The Decline of the Art of Composition: a
Technical-Critical Study,"
Music Analysis, 24/1‒2 (March‒July 2005),
1‒232 (introduction, translation, German text).

Commentary

All reasonable efforts have been made to trace the heirs and representatives of Heinrich Schenker. This material is deemed to be the public domain. Any claim to intellectual rights on this document should be addressed to the Schenker Correspondence Project, Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge, at schenkercorrespondence[at]mus[dot]cam[dot]ac[dot]uk.

Rights Holder

The heirs and representatives of Heinrich Schenker. Deemed to be in the public domain.